The resource CD has some trial versions of data recovery and antivirus software for you to try out. Nice! It's also a good idea to check out the manual before installing a drive, especially if this is your first time using an external enclosure. The manual goes through the entire installation process step by step for both Windows and Mac OS.

The drive tray is constructed of plastic and has plenty of ventilation holes for warm air to escape. With no fans on this unit, it's important to have as much ventilation as possible to keep the drive cool.

Remember to format the drive before installing it in the enclosure. Once that is complete, the drive can be snapped in to the SATA connectors on the tray. Then it must be secured further with four screws. In order to do this, the tray must be flipped over.

With the tray flipped over, the four screw holes we need to use are now visible. Secure the drive, put everything back together, and you're done. While this isn't a tough process by any means, it is not tool-free and therefore isn't as quick of an installation as it could be. Overall things are looking good so far though, so let's continue.

When the unit is powered on, you are greeted with a nice blue glow from the base. It's not as bright as it appears in the picture and if you have blue LED fans or other lights in your case, it will compliment the rig perfectly. There are no drivers needed either as long as you're using Win98SE or later, Mac OS 9 or later, or Linux.

With a Western Digital drive installed inside the enclosure, it's now time to copy some files and record the time it takes to transfer them to and from the enclosure. To begin, I copied a 4.35GB file between two internal SATA drives in my test PC running Windows XP SP3. It took 1 minute, 29 seconds. Let's compare that to the time it takes to copy the same file to the enclosure using USB first, then eSATA:

4.35GB File Transfer (USB 2.0)

Time (minutes:seconds)

Write to Enclosure

2:25

Read from Enclosure

2:20

4.35GB File Transfer (eSATA)

Time (minutes:seconds)

Write to Enclosure

1:20

Read from Enclosure

1:18

Theoretically, USB 2.0 has a transfer rate of 480MB per second and eSATA 3GB per second, but realistically those speeds are never reached. However, it still goes without saying that for transferring large files eSATA is definitely the way to go if your rig supports it. For smaller files or for universal compatibility, USB will get the job done just fine. The enclosure consistently performed well no matter which interface I was using.

Since the only path for warm air to escape is through the front faceplate, I was concerned about the possibility of overheating. After transferring a group of files totaling about 20GB back and forth to the enclosure a few times, the outer shell was warm to the touch. However, it was only slightly warm and never got hot enough to worry about overheating. Silent operation is great, just as long as I don't have to sacrifice my data for it. The good news is that after using this enclosure for several days nonstop, I can safely say that I feel confident in storing any kind of data on it.